The Lost Toy Soldiers
by The Rei-Fan
Summary: Evangelion Firefly crossover. A tale of life, love, amnesia, and the will to keep flying. First in a series.
1. Chapter 1

Re-did chapter 1, I don't own eva, SHOCK HORROR I don't own firefly either

Re-did chapter 1, I don't own eva, SHOCK HORROR I don't own firefly either

Read-review and I really need somebody to pre-read

January 15th, 2508, 16:50 hours

Relaxation, he remembered relaxation. Sitting on the beach, staring out at the ocean, watching the waves roll in as he drank from a coconut. He'd rather be there right now. Edward Kim was standing on the bridge of his newest acquisition, a nearly completely frigate. Nearly complete. He called into his radio, "Jonnie, what the hell are you doin' down there. Ships been sittin here for a week, I'd like to get movin."

Johnny's real name was Hiro Nagato, he got the nickname 'Johnny' because of his love of old John Wayne movies. He'd been with the Captain in the war, they'd been friends ever since that time. There's nothing Johnny can't fix, a fact he's proud to inform anybody who asks, and that's the reason the Captain called him when he found the ship floating free in the belt.

"Oh, just nappin, thought maybe the ship would fix itself 'n all that"

"Yeah yeah, just get the ship moving, smartass." replied Kim. He liked Johnny, they'd saved each other often enough during the war, and it just wouldn't have felt right to run this ship without him.

"Sorry Cap'n, I'm tryin down here." replied Johnny as he stared down the control panel and again tried to start the reactor, moving the control rods to operational height and engaging the coolant flow. Again it failed. As the control rods began to slide back into position after a failed restart he kicked the console, the rods suddenly sliding back into their operational position as the gauges on the console read out that the reactor was indeed active.

_'We'll its about damn time'_ he slumped back into his chair and activated the power grid on the ship, the various systems coming online as a soft hum from the engines reverberated through the ship. He looked over to a small monitor next to his control panel expecting to see grid information, what he saw instead was a video-feed and cryo-pod status tables. As he looked at the video feed he saw three pods, three teenagers were in those pods, one with blue hair, one with red, and one with brown. Behind the pods he saw a large purple hand. '_What the hell is that'._ He immediately keyed up the intra-ship comm unit. "Cap'n, i think you need to meet me in the cargo bay, I've found something"

Kim punched the comm button on the console in front of him and called into the headset, "Define 'something' Johnny, is it gonna blow up my ship?" Edward Kim was not a man that liked surprises as they usually ended up with him in a worse situation than before said surprise.

"No cap, I don't think its gonna blow up the ship but uh…I think it's the crew…."

With that comment the Captain dropped his headset and sprinted towards the cargo bay without even replying to the communication. _'Crew? There were no life signs on this ship…we scanned it!'_ As he thought about the situation it seemed almost ironic, he finally caught a break, landed himself a nice bit of salvage, his own frigate, only problem was that it apparently still had a crew.

Johnny crossed the corridor outside of the engineering section and continued on a few meters until he found himself in the cargo bay, in front of him were the three cryogenic sleeper pods….and beyond that was an arm. A giant purple arm inscribed with letters. "Evangelion Unit Zero One, what the hell is it…" Johnny was stumped, he'd never seen anything like it, and he'd seen quite a bit.

He walked over to the pods and looked in through the glass at the teens frozen inside. In the first pod was a pale skinned Japanese girl, her blue hair cut short above her shoulders, her eyes closed as she 'slept' in her pod. The second down the row was a girl about the same age, also showing Asian facial features, though her skin had more color and her hair was a shade of red. The final pod contained a boy who looked almost like he was related to the first girl, his hair brown and cut short to his head. "Why would there be children in cryo on a ship this old…."

As those words left his mouth he turned to see Kim slide around the corner and into the cargo bay, panting as he stood there looking at the pods. "You…said……crew?" _Damnit, I'm not gonna lose this ship, I just got it running!_

"Well, not crew so much I'd guess, they look like kids, that one on the far left looks interestin though." Johnny said and gestured towards the first cryopod "you think we should wake 'em up Cap'n?"

The Captain stands there for a minute, looking at the pods and the occupants of said pods. "I don't see why we shouldn't; they might know somethin' 'bout what happened to the ship that left it like this."

Johnny nodded and turned to the control console for the pods, activating the wake-up program. "Well Cap'n lets…see what they gotta say." He leaned against the console, waiting as the pods warmed and vented their gasses, the occupants stirred as the glass retracted.

The first to wake up fully was the boy. As he opened his eyes he turned to look at Eddie Kim, noticing his beard and his….familiar face. "father?"

"W-what? Kid, I'm pretty sure I'm not your daddy…" Kim looked at the kid strangely, then turned slightly to address the three of them together "so…who are you kids and what are you doing on a disabled ship out in the middle of the black?"

It was Shinji's turn to act surprised, Gendo never talked like this and the more he looked at the man the more he could see the slight differences to how his father looked. "M-my name is Ikari Shinji" _What happened? I was in unit-01…I saw unit-02 laying in pieces in the geofront…_

Asuka took this opportunity to break Shinji's train of thought with an outburst at Kim, "The Black? What are you talking about?" She noticed her surroundings as she finished talking, the metal construction of the room completely unfamiliar. "Just where are we? This doesn't look like the geofront…."

As those words left her mouth an alarm began to blare throughout the ship and kim turned around to face Johnny "What is that, did you fix the ship wrong Johnny?" This day was really starting to disturb his calm and his expression was showing that fact.

"That's the proximity alarm Cap'n" as the words left his mouth Johnny turned to the panel and accessed an external view of the ship. _Gotta appreciate multifunction control consoles._ And then he noticed what was _on_ the display. "Ta ma de cap'n its an alliance cruiser comin' up on us!"

Kim stared slack jawed at Johnny for second before gathering himself "We need to get gone Johnny, go full burn and get us out of here!"

Johnny turned to kim with a horrified expression on his face "Can't Cap'n… I never fixed the engines.

"Zhen dao mei get the kids back into cryo and dump them off ship, I don't want an alliance hun dan gettin em" he turned to said kids "get back in the pods, we're gonna dump you into black, the pods will hold up for a few years at least. You're just kids and I ain't gonna let them have ya. We'll try to come back for ya, but I can't guarantee it." As he finished he shoved Shinji into the pod, followed by Asuka and Rei, sealing the pods and re-activating them. "Johnny, lets get the pods into the airlock and space them, put one of the beacons on it, set it to delay for a month before startin up."

And with that they began the task of dumping the pods into space.


	2. Chapter 2

Read chapter one for disclaimer Read chapter one for disclaimer

The chapter is fully updated and finished

May 31st 2518

River Tam bolted upright in her bed as she woke from her sleep, her face covered in a cold sweat. She ran from her bunk and through the ship, she didn't stop until she reached the door to Mal's room. She shoved the hatch open and climbed down the ladder, making a lot of noise in the process. Waking Mal in the process.

"Wha? What are you doing in here River?" Mal was still waking up and more than a little confused. _This is pretty much par for the course.._

River looked at him, her eyes wide. "She is coming." At this she ran from his room.

"Huh?" Mal looked at the hatch as river slipped out, and decided to go back to sleep, he'd deal with it in the morning. As his head hit pillow he drifted back to sleep.

XXXXXX

The next morning as Wash sat in the cockpit playing with his dinosaurs the scanner began to beep impatiently at him. "What have we here, oh, a beacon. A _distress _beacon." He turned his chair around and walked from the cockpit into the dining room where Mal was eating a bowl of food, that is, if the protein substance could be called such. "Hey Mal, enjoying your gourmet breakfast I see. Anywho there's a distress beacon on the scanner, thought you might like to take a look at it"

Mal stared into his suddenly very interesting bowl of protein based food substitute. "isn't it a little early for an adventure, wash?" He poked his spoon into the brown mass and gave up on breakfast, he had a powerful need for some _real _food, not this _substance_ claiming to be food. He caught the insistent look on his pilot's face and gave up, "fine, lets go investigate, but lets be careful, make sure its not a gorram Reaver trap" at mentioning this both Wash and Mal had a look of slight dread remembering the incident.

Wash left for the cockpit and upon sitting down set the controls to intercept the beacon and went to hard burn, intent on getting to whatever was broadcasting the signal as soon as possible. He didn't know how long it had been active but he didn't want to find out he was too late by going too slow. He opened up the shipboard comm to the dining room, "Mal, we should be at the signal in a little under ten minutes."

Mal pushed his bowl away and made for the cockpit, not even noticing River slip in and steal the bowl off the table. He activated the comm to the rest of the ship as he looked at the sensor screen in front of wash. "Jayne, Zoe, gear up and meet me in the cargo bay, we're going to have guests"

Responding with the panel in his bunk Jayne called back up to the cockpit. "Should I bring grenades?"

"No, no grenades" Mal pressed his hand to his forehead, a migraine rapidly forming between his eyes in that excruciating way that they have a habit of doing. He made his way down to the cargo hold still rubbing his forehead as he arrived, finding Zoe and Jayne already there waiting for him.

Zoe was first to speak, "What's going on sir?"

He leaned against a crate and answered "Wash saw a distress beacon on the scanner, I thought we should investigate. Wouldn't really be right to leave somebody floatin out in the black." He vividly remembered when the life support had broken after that fire and his near demise after being shot by the only people to answer the distress call. _Ta ma de why am I always getting shot anyway? _

Wash chose this moment to open up the comm to the cargo hold. "Mal it's an escape pod or something about that size, should I scoop it?"

Mal was surprised, "you can do that?"

Wash's grin was almost audible as he replied "Sure Mal, just open the airlock and fly the ship over and around the pod"

"And you can do that?"

"Probably."

Mal replied nervously "well, you best be doing your best flyin', don't need extra holes in my boat" He was starting to have doubts about this course of action. _Why do I always gotta do the right thing, now I'm gonna be pickin up MORE strays. _As he finished his thought there was a dull clunk as the outer airlock opened, followed by a second clunk as the pod landed on the airlock floor. Finally there was a third clunk and a hiss as the outer door sealed and the chamber began to pressurize, and then the inner door opened revealing a single cryogenic freeze pod.

"That thing looks like an ancient piece of crap" Jayne observed, ever a man of eloquence. Then he noticed the young blue haired girl inside said piece of crap. "We should uh, open that pod up, make sure the nice frozen lady is okay." He stated _that_ in a tone that made his intentions seem less than honorable, as was normal for Jayne.

Zoe eyed Jayne, "It pains me to say it sir, but Jayne's right, we should get this girl to Simon"

Jayne's head perked up "Wait, I'm right?"

Mal ignored him and turned back to zoe, "Those are words I will never get used to" then he turned towards the pod "Jayne, go get the cart and drag the pod into the bay"

XXXXXXX

Simon Tam stood in front of the ancient-looking pod, recognizing it from when he was researching cryogenics on the cortex in preparation for his rescue of river. "This is old, very old."

As those words left his mouth Mal perked up "Exactly how old?"

"Four hundred-Five hundred years give or take." Simon studied the girl inside and looked at the monitoring panel built into the pod, "It looks like she's healthy, but there's something not quite right about her." He pulled back on a lever built into the side of the pod and the hatch popped open, the girl laying down in the tipped pod. "It's old technology, it could take a whi-" and he was cut off as the girl awoke and sat upright in the pod. "-le for her to wake up" He deadpanned. He crouched down to the girl, med-pack in hand and turned to look at her face. "You're different…"

Rei looked into Simon's eyes for a moment before cocking her head to the side, "who are you?"

"My name is Simon, I'm a doctor. What is your name?"

She looked at him, her eyes drifting off lost in thought. "I… My name is…" she concentrated trying to remember, her mind clouded from the long sleep "It is Rei. Rei Ayanami."

River watched from her perch on the railing of the catwalk above, smiling. "She is here"

OH NO WHAT HAVE I DONE! Why was Rei frozen in the first place? Why did she become separated from Asuka and Shinji? Why is her memory broken. Most importantly, what role will she play? End chapter 2 please read and review!


	3. Chapter 3

While you wait for the next chapter, lets go back in time and see what happened to Kim and Johnny ;)

--

"Johnny can ya give me guns?" Kim was, for lack of a better word, pissed. He'd made his way back to the bridge and sent Johnny back to the engine room, hoping for a miracle.

"I'll see what I..." Johnny was scrolling through lists of active systems looking for some kind of defense: guns, countermeasures, anything. A blinking red icon showed up on the panel and got his attention. "Cap'n, we got a Diamondback anti-shipping missile fueled and ready to fire in launch tube 3!"

Maybe today wasn't so bad. Kim tapped on the controls at the pilot's station, "Good work Johnny, but we're still humped if you can't get me some power, this ship needs to MOVE!"

Jonny was scrambling around the engine room like a madman on a mission, bypassing safety systems, cutting flow regulators, and generally making the ship a rather unsafe place to be. He finished his mechanical voodoo and pulled hard on the drive core ignition lever, the status panel lit up like a Christmas tree decorated with napalm and set on fire, warning lights flashing franticly demanding shutdown of the rather unsafe drive. "Cap'n you got maneuvering power and main drive, she's a little dodgy so you've got two speeds: stop and fast, and you better make this quick because we're running without containment"

_Great, alliance doesn't kill us our own engines will._ Kim brought the ship around to face the oncoming Alliance cruiser, bringing the drive up to speed to close the distance. If he didn't fire off the first shot, he might not be able to fire at all. He closed on the cruiser rapidly when his comm lit up.

"The is the _I.A.V._ _Pegasus_, you will power your ship down and prepare to be boarded."

Having had enough alliance go se for one lifetime he continued his approach to the Alliance vessel, targeting systems coming online and locking onto the other ship. The target locked, the Diamondback missile shot forth from the tube on a pillar of fire as it streaked towards the Alliance ship.

The missile impacted, breaching the hull on the starboard aft plating, venting the section to space but otherwise doing no damage to the ship. It returned fire using its own heavy rail guns, ripping man-sized holes through Kim's ship and venting various sections to space, ripping out most of the navigation and fire-control systems. A console exploded in front of him sending shrapnel into his gut, without immediate medical attention he wasn't going to survive.

So he made a decision. "Johnny, get back to the _Blackjack_ and get out of here."

"Ain't leavin ya cap'n, we'll get through this"

"Not this time Johnny, get outta here, no point you dyin for no reason."

Reluctantly Johnny made his way back to the docking bay and started up _Blackjack_. The small Firefly class ship flew out of the hanger and, as Johnny took one last look at the damaged frigate, lit off the drive and shot off for Whitefall at full burn.

On the frigate Kim looked defiantly at the cruiser through the cracked window on the bridge. "One last fight…" He keyed up the mic and broadcast his message to the other ship, "Serenity Valley" and he dropped the mic, his strength beginning to fail him. He dropped his hand onto the engine controls and spun the engines up for full burn. The engines fired and, as the ship shot off towards the cruiser, Kim and the frigate let out one last scream before dying. The two ships collided and then the world turned white.

Had anybody been left alive after the blast they might have noticed a chunk of hull plating with one word on it: "Katsuragi". They might also have noticed the three large man-shaped objects spinning off into the black towards, a blue and green planet.

The planet's name was Miranda.


	4. Chapter 4

Standard disclaimer

Chapter 4

"What were you doing all the way out here in a little freezer?" Mal was curious as to what a young girl was doing so far out away from normal shipping lanes.

Rei turned her head to Mal, her brow furrowed in concentration. "I don't remember… I don't remember anything" as the words left her mouth her face took on a frightened expression. _I can't remember anything…_

Mal scratched the back of his head, "that complicates things a bit"

It was at that moment that Jayne noticed her complete lack of clothing, "What is it with naked crazy girls poppin outta boxes?"

Simon looked at Rei and guessed her size. "she's about the same size as River, I probably have something…" he trailed off as he left the bay in search of proper clothing.

Mal reached down into the pod and helped the girl up and out of it. He slipped off his coat and put it around her shoulders to cover her pale naked form. He got a closer look at her face and noticed her blood red irises. _That's just unsettling._ "We should uh… Zoe?"

"I'll take her to the dining room, sir." Zoe reached out for Rei's hand

Jayne took one last look at the nicely shaped pale skinned girl as Zoe took her to the dining room. "I'll be in my bunk"

XXXXXXXXXXXX

It had been a few weeks since Rei had come on board. She didn't talk much but she made herself useful, cooking, cleaning, and helping Kaylee in the engine room. She didn't know much about the engines or anything mechanical at all but she did what Kaylee told her to do and learned more every day. And then there was today.

_Serenity_ was on her way down to Santo to deliver a 'cargo of questionable legality' and Wash was watching out the forward window as the plasma from the heat of re-entry licked up past it. It was then that the ship began shaking wildly before going dark, the thrusters going dark moments later. The ship was in freefall. "Ta ma de… Kaylee I don't have any power, what's going on back there?" Wash was pushing switches on the control panel trying to get the backups to start up and give him some control over the ship and take her out of the uncontrolled tumble they were currently experiencing.

Kaylee meanwhile was scrambling around the engine room trying to figure out what broke and fix it. She was digging into the guts of the now stationary engine of the ship when she head Wash on the comm, unfortunately she wasn't able to reach the handset to reply being buried in the engine and all. Rei picked up the handset and answered Wash, "Kaylee's kinda busy, call back later." and she hung up the handset.

Kaylee found the problem component, a faulty charge inverter. She disconnected it and ran a bypass around it. Sparks shot from the engine and it started turning again, bringing the power back online and the thrusters spun back up. She jumped out from under the engine and grabbed the handset off the wall. "Wash we got power!"

Back on the bridge Wash was pulling back hard on the control yoke trying to level the ship off. The fall had taken them nearly to ground before the power came back, and even with the engines at full power he wasn't sure he could keep them from crashing. Down the ship went and, just before impact, the ship leveled, taking the tops off a few trees as it skimmed the surface of the planet. "I am a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar."

Mal burst onto the bridge, visibly shaken from the bumpy ride. "Wash, what's going on up here?" He stared out the bridge windows at the terrain rapidly shooting past, his face somewhat slack with shock.

"Crashing the ship." Wash continued to struggle with the controls, the ship settling down as it bled off speed.

"Well... do it gently." Mal rubbed his forehead, that migraine was on its way back through his brain. _It's gonna be a real good day. _He made his way back to the engine room to find out _why_ his ship was crashing. He stuck his head in through the open hatch to see Kaylee under the engine working on…something…and Rei staring at him._ Gorram creepifyin eyes._ He shook off the feeling and crouched down to look under the engine. "Kaylee, why is my ship crashing?"

She peeked out from under the engine for a moment to look at Mal then slid back under it. "The charge inverter blew out so the thrusters shut down, tryin' to work around it." Kaylee was cursing internally. _If I had the right parts she'd fly just fine but he never wants to spend the money… _

Mal cocked an eyebrow at her. "I thought you just bought a spare"

"That was six months ago and this _is_ the spare."

"My ship doesn't crash Kaylee, she crashes you crashed her." And with that Mal turned to walk away from her. Unfortunately for him he failed to notice Kaylee slide out from under the engine long enough to scowl at the back of Mal's head. As he walked back towards the dining room he felt a great heat upon his head and couldn't figure out exactly why.

River poked her head into the engine room and looked around; she smiled and looked at Rei. "Kaylee is red today."

Rei, confused by the sudden and strange comment cocked an eyebrow at River. "You're touched in the head, River." Rei turned her eyes away in sudden thought. _It feels…wrong how I interact with the crew, its enjoyable but…not quite right…_

"She doesn't know the way her _own_ head works, she talks of craziness." River giggled and ran off again. _So disconnected in her own head with who she is…_

Rei sighed and laid onto Kaylee's hammock, "Is River always so… odd?"

Kaylee smiled under the engine, Rei was becoming more comfortable around the crew and it made Kaylee happy. "River's just special. She does make sense sometimes though."

Kaylee went back to working on the engine as Rei slid out of the hammock and walked towards the bridge. Upon arriving she saw that the ship had climbed a great deal and was cruising towards the spaceport, where it would land 'properly', which was an improvement over their previously expected high velocity excavation-style landing.

Wash looked over his shoulder to the newcomer to the bridge, "hey there Rei, what brings up he-." He was cut off as the artificial gravity control panel exploded, the blast knocking him from his chair and onto the deck plating. He was out cold and serenity was without a pilot.

As if acting on instinct Rei slid into the copilots chair and grabbed onto the control yoke, steadying the ship, which was now shaking with the loss of its artificial gravity. Clearly surprising herself that she somehow knew how to fly the durable firefly midbulk transport. She grabbed onto the microphone handset, "Simon, Wash is hurt, get up here!" She gripped the yoke tightly as the ship bucked, she tried to level the ship as it listed to the side.

Simon was running through the ship carrying his medical kit as he rushed past Mal, who was rather surprised to see such a thing. "What's the rush Doc?"

"Wash is hurt, Rei called me in the infirmary…" there was a flash of realization on Simon's face, "If you're here, who's flying the ship?"

As the words left Simon's mouth the color drained from Mal's face and both he and Simon sprinted towards the bridge as the ship bucked and rolled under their feet, tossing them about as they made their journey. They reached the door to the bridge and saw Wash lying on the floor, then they saw Rei sitting at the copilot's station flying the ship.

Simon dropped to the deck next to Wash and checked his vitals and examined him for injury. Mal went over to the copilots station, "Hey there Blue, didn't know you could fly a ship." He stared nervously at the panel in front of her, to his surprise she was doing almost as good of a job as Wash would have of keeping _Serenity_ in the air.

"I didn't know either, I just sat down and…knew how" She rotated the engines into their downward position as the ship settled in over the landing pad, she deployed the landing struts and set the ship down on the pad, powering down the thrusters and folding them into the landed position. Then she blacked out.

_Evangelion Unit-00 descended the ventilation shaft at high velocity, before hitting the bottom of the shaft huge solid fuel rockets flared out from the shoulder pylons of the blue unit, slowing its decent. Quickly crouching down Rei grabbed the rifle off the ground and threw it straight up, into the waiting hands of unit-01._

She woke up in the infirmary, staring up at the ceiling. "how did I..."

Simon turned around as she spoke. "Hey, you're awake, that's good."

"What happened?"

"Wash was hurt and you landed the ship, then for no reason that I can figure out you lost consciousness." Simon looked at her vitals on the monitor, and seeing them normal was relieved.

Rei closed her eyes for a moment and leaned back in the chair. "I had a strange dream. It had giant robots and I was piloting one of them, it was so…real"

Before Simon had a chance to respond to the girl, River slipped into the infirmary and looked over at Rei. "She saw what she was, what she can be"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

So, Rei's really out of character, why?! Simply put, she's got amnesia, so since most of her emotionlessness was conditioned into her, not remembering it would mean she can start over. In this case im trying to work with the AU Rei from the end of the series (not End of Evangelion)

Next up, ANGEL ATTACK

No, not really, but next chapter soon.

P.S. I could really use pre-readers.


	5. Chapter 5

Shepherd Book was walking past the infirmary when he heard Rei's voice "…had giant robots and I was piloting…" The wheels in his mind began turning, making connections. _It almost makes sense, she was cryogenically frozen…and she matches the physical description. Could she really be one of them? I should speak with her._ Deciding that this wasn't the best time he continued on toward his room.

In the infirmary a conversation was taking place. Rei was nervously looking between Simon and River. _What is she talking about?_

Simon was the first to speak. "River what does that mean?"

River looked at him with her special 'you're such a boob' face. "The girl _knows_ what she is, she just doesn't remember yet, but she will."

Rei had a rather confused expression on her face. _What is she talking about...?_ "What I am? I don't understand."

Simon stared at River, more confused now than before. _If she could make sense just once…_ "River, do you know who she is?"

River gave him another 'you are a boob' look. "The truth is in the genes" and at that she left the infirmary for the kitchen. _Today is a good day for apples._

A voice cut through the silence of River's departure, Mal was on the intercom. "Doc, how's the girl?

Simon took another look at Rei. "She's fine as far as I can tell-"

Mal cut him off before he could say anything more. "Well that's good, we've got a job and I think its time the girl earns her keep."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Rei entered the cargo hold and saw Mal, Jayne, Zoe, and Wash standing near the mule, as she approached them Mal turned to speak to her. "Ah, our little pilot, good to see you up and about. We got a job and your newfound flyin' skills are gonna be part of it." He showed her a picture of a long white cylindrical object. "Badger wants us to liberate this from a collector of earth-that-was artifacts here on Santo and bring it to Persephone. Your part of this is simple: you're driving the mule, any questions?"

Rei blinked slowly, absorbing it all before responding. "I understand, when do we leave?"

"Right now."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Rei was sitting behind the controls of the mule, driving through town towards the warehouse the target was located in. Zoe, Mal, and Jayne were sitting in the back, Jayne was arguing with Mal over the decision that he wasn't allowed to bring grenades. The argument ended as they approached the warehouse. Upon arriving at the opening to an entrance to an ally next to the warehouse they disembarked, leaving Rei alone in the hovermule.

"Now you wait here until we come back, we might be leaving in a hurry so keep the engine running." Mal said quickly before they departed down the ally and into a side entrance to the building.

Inside the building Mal found the object they had been sent for, however he wasn't entirely pleased. It was huge, far bigger than the mule, it was however loaded onto a truck. "I conjure that's not gonna fit on the mule."

"Are we taking the truck then, sir?" Zoe inquired.

"That's the notion, get in the truck and take Jayne, I'll open the door then get the girl and meet you back at the ship."

The plan was set in motion. Zoe started the truck and drove it out of the warehouse and towards _Serenity._ Mal ran back out to the mule, boarding it and turning to its pilot, "Looks like it's a little bigger than we thought, Zoe's bringing it back on a truck. Let's get back to the ship."

With that said Rei pulled on the controls, spinning the mule about its axis to face out of the ally and throttling up the engines and heading off towards the ship along a different route than the truck. The mule's superior speed resulted in their arriving first.

As soon as Mal disembarked from the mule he walked over to the intercom and called up to the flight deck, "Wash, heat up the engines, we might be leaving in a hurry and I don't wanna get landlocked."

Several minutes later as the thrusters finished starting up, a truck backed up to the loading ramp and from that truck stepped Jayne and Zoe. Jayne began cutting the straps holding the cylinder to the truck as Zoe stepped into the hold and over to Mal. "Winch, sir?"

"Sounds as good a plan as any." He turned towards the intercom and keyed it up for the engine room. "Kaylee get down to the cargo bay and set up the winch, we need to unload a truck."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Half an hour later Kaylee had finished connecting the winch to the bulkhead in the cargo bay and was looping the cable around the end of the cargo to pull it off the trailer and into the bay. Rei was helping her secure the cabling when she heard footsteps on the ramp on the opposite side of the cargo. She looked over the top of the cylinder and saw two men in black suits. Upon closer examination she saw that they had blue gloved hands and one of them was holding a black device with two sticks coming out of the sides. Moments later she heard a scream and saw Kaylee writhing in pain on the deck. She had to save her friend, and making a snap decision she launched herself over the cylinder and onto the head of the nearer man. Her foot connected with his ear and snapped his head to the side, sending the man crashing to the deck and the black object to fly from his grip, shattering as it hit a bulkhead.

The remaining man grabbed her by the neck and threw her across the bay into a weapons locker on the far side. She crumpled to the deck and the door of the locker fell open. A short-barrel lever action rifle, one just like Zoe's, fell from the inside of the door as the impact had broken the clips holding it up. She grabbed the rifle from the deck and tried to stand, but couldn't as she realized she couldn't move her legs. She aimed the rifle at the advancing men, the one she knocked down having gotten back up, and fired off a shot, which impacted near harmlessly against the man's body armor. She worked the action and chambered a second shot and fired again at the man, hitting him in the chest again and failing to penetrate the armor.

Up in the mess Jayne had finished cleaning Vera and was in the process of reloading her when he heard the gunshots from the cargo bay. He grabbed the gun and ran down the stairs and onto the catwalk over the cargo bay. What he saw shocked him: sitting against a thoroughly damaged gun cabinet was the pale skinned blue haired girl (and based on the damage to the cabinet he figured she shouldn't even be alive much less conscious) emptying the mare's leg into the men advancing into the cargo hold. That was when he saw Kaylee bleeding on the deck. Jayne saw red. Screaming in unrestrained rage he brought Vera up to his shoulder and fired at the lead Blue-Hand while advancing down the stairs towards the man, now realizing exactly what the moonbrain had been talking about, and penetrated his chest armor, but still not slowing him down. Emptying the gun into the lead man and satisfied he wasn't getting back up he directed his attention to the second man. He pulled the revolver from his holster and rushed at the Blue-Hand and fired his gun over and over, five shots rang out before he reached the man. Jayne's leg snapped out and kicked the man into a crate and was on him before the man could blink, shoving his gun under the man's jaw he looked the Blue-Hand in the eye before firing his last shot through the man's skull and out the top, brain matter splattering against the aforementioned crate. As quickly as he'd charge the man he dropped his gun and turned towards Kaylee, running over to her and dropping to the deck at her side as Mal and Zoe entered the hold. Jayne yelled up to them, "Get the Doc, Kaylee's bleedin' out!"

Rei staggered to her feet as the feeling returned in her legs. She dropped the now empty rifle and limped through the door into the common area and opened the sealed door to the infirmary and walked through, she saw Simon. "Kaylee is injured in the cargo bay, she's bleeding badly."

Simon's eyes went wide and he grabbed his red medical kit and sprinted from the infirmary, up the stairs, and into the cargo bay, and to Kaylee's side. He saw blood coming out of her nose and mouth but couldn't find a reason, checking her vitals he felt a strong pulse and felt it was safe to move her to the infirmary.

Mal moved down the stairs and to the controls for the winch, turning it on and dragging the cargo into the bay. This being complete he pushed the close button on the control panel for the bay doors, then pressed the button for the intercom, "Wash, we need to leave right now, get us the hell out of here."

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Safely back in the black it was time for explanations. Everybody, save Book, Simon, and Kaylee, who were in the infirmary, was in the dining area.

Mal started the discussion, "Now, assuming this is who River was talking about when she was repeating 'two by two hands of blue' I imagine the question on all of our minds is: how in the gorram hell did they know she was on this ship." He looked around the table for somebody to answer him, unsurprisingly, River did.

"Not looking for me, saw her, knows what she is." She pointed to the sore and bruised Rei.

Rei was sitting in the soft chair; her wounds were aching and her muscles sore from the fight earlier in the cargo bay. She was more than a little pissed that River kept talking about her as an object rather than a person, "You mean _who_ I am, last I looked I was a _person" _Everybody at the table blinked a few times, they'd never seen the girl so emotive.

River spoke before anybody could really react to the outburst. "Not a human being, not unique, a toy soldier to be used to their ends, a doll."

Rei's face turned red, she had taken enough of this, enough of cryptic River-speak, enough of the perceived insults. She stood and dragged river from the chair next to her and stood her up. Then she decked the other girl, sending River staggering a few steps backwards to keep from falling. "I am not a doll." Rei stormed from the room and down to her bunk.

Everybody at the table stared after the normally calm girl in shock. Wash spoke up, "Did anybody else see that?

River looked to the door Rei had just walked through. "It's going to be different this time."

Okay, another chapter down.

For those that are a little confused about the landlock; I'm working on the assumption that landlock isn't literally a clamp holding the ship to the ground, and is instead a system that somehow keeps a ship's engines from starting. In the episode jaynestown when serenity was landlocked there were no clamps available to lock the ship to the ground, instead wash was trying to start the engines and they spun back down rather than finish starting, only when the landlock was lifted did the ship actually start up.

Hope you enjoyed, don't forget to review!


	6. Chapter 6

Kaylee was awake in the infirmary and she had a headache. Maybe headache isn't the best word. A headache is to what she was feeling as a bullet is to a nuclear missile. Still, she was smiling; it took more than a headache to bring Kaylee's cheer down.

Simon was on the other side of the infirmary talking to Mal quietly. "I don't know what exactly happened, some of the capillaries in her nose broke open, but as for _how_ it happened I don't know."

Mal nodded his head. "Is she gonna be okay?"

"As far as I can see, she'll be fine except for a bad headache for a few days." Simon set down the papers he'd been holding, said papers having readouts of her vital signs over the past six hours.

"Good"

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The days passed un-eventfully for the crew of serenity. Kaylee healed quickly. Rei also healed, although she still had some pain if she moved the wrong way. Jayne polished the scuff marks off of Vera from where he'd dropped her. Book continued to observe Rei, curious about exactly who and what she was. Simon kept trying to find new ways to medicate River. River was as per normal very cryptic and difficult to understand. She was also, to everyone's surprise, trying to become a friend to Rei ever since the incident in the dining room.

River was especially lucid today; Simon had found a cocktail of drugs that worked out better than most.

"I'm sorry." River was perched on the railing of the catwalk as Rei was walking past, "Sometimes I can't make sense…"

Rei looked at the girl, a thin smile on her lips. "Apology accepted. Are you crazy today?"

It was River's turn to smile, "she's always crazy, just makes more sense right now." Satisfied that their relationship had been somewhat repaired River carefully and covertly plucked a single strand of hair from Rei's scalp as she ran past and towards Simon's room.

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Rei was standing next to the cylinder, and looking at it she thought that it was something she should know. Something about it brought something up in her fragmented memory. _Entry Plug._ She looked at the plug, knowing its name but still not knowing exactly what it was for. Something compelled her to pull on the handles to the escape hatch and twist the lock open. She pulled the door the rest of the way open and looked inside the capsule. Light from the cargo bay filtered into the plug and thanks to its reflective inner coating illuminated the interior to a satisfactory level. Inside was a metal control seat of some kind, it was familiar to her, also inside she saw three more objects she was sure she should know about. Two white smoothed triangle shaped hair clips and some kind of rubber latex suit. Looking at the suit she examined its construction, it was mostly white with some black around the arms and stripes down the legs, orange around the shoulders with 00 stenciled into the chest of it. She found herself compelled to take the items, and so she did, sneaking out of the plug and resealing the hatch behind her she took the items to her room and hid them in the closet space.

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_Evangelion Unit-01 fired up its launch catapult as if god himself had thrown it. It reached the locks at the top of the guide rails and stopped, head snapping up like a soldier standing at attention. The shoulder locks were released and the beast took a few clumsy steps forward, crushing cars and lamp posts under foot. Unexpectedly the Eva tripped and fell onto its face. It was at that time the angel grabbed the Eva by the head and lifted it to its feet, snapping its left arm and pounding a spike through the units head, finally throwing it back into a building. The head slumped and blood began pouring out of the wound, the angel advanced on the collapsed form, there was panic in the control room and all hope was lost. Then, without warning the Eva's remaining eye lit up and its head snapped up to look at its enemy. Then all hell broke loose._

_The jaw restraints snapped open and the unit let out a howl of rage, dropping into a crouch and jettisoning its power cable before launching itself through the air, doing a forward flip before landing on the shoulders of its enemy, ripping into the angel like a lion ripping into a gazelle. Blood was spilled from the creature as more and more flesh was torn from the beast. As unit-01 began pounding into the core of the angel, said angel wrapped itself around the Eva and exploded. As the blast cleared the unit could be seen walking forward out of the crater. It stepped in front of the reflective windows of an office building as the head armor fell off, its vacant eye socket could be seen from inside the entry plug. Then the eye regenerated. Inside the plug Rei let out the breath she'd been holding. It was done._

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Rei sat awake her body covered in a cold sweat, her hair was wet and sticking to her skin. _To keep Shinji safe, he was broken and bleeding from the N2 mine on his way in to HQ He couldn't pilot, it would have killed him._ She stared at the wall for a moment then started to think more on that. _Wait, it's a dream, that kind of thing isn't possible…_

She got out of bed, too shaken to get back to sleep. She got dressed and slid on her boots. It wouldn't be long before _Serenity_ woke up and she figured it best to start the day early. Stepping out of her bunk she nearly ran directly into River.

River was looking at her with a concerned look on her face, "Bad dream?"

Rei nodded her head, "its… confusing for me. Feels so real but it can't be."

River nodded her head and turned to walk away but turned her head back to Rei, "Maybe it is." Then she walked away, back into her room.

Rei stood in the hallway for ten minutes after River had left, thinking on what she'd said. _Maybe it is real? _She went back into her room and looked in the closet at the items she'd taken from the plug. _I…remember this…I was wearing it in my first dream…_ In a startling realization she understood. It was real, it was all real.

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Simon was cleaning out the infirmary, there was nothing else to occupy his time this early in the morning, or even on this ship most of the time. He looked up as he heard footsteps enter the room. He saw the slim blue haired girl standing just inside the room. "Hello Rei, you feeling okay? Do you need a painkiller?"

Rei shook her head, "I had another one of those dreams…and since I only told _you_ about the first one…" her face took on an unsure expression.

Simon picked up on this. "and…?" he asked curiously.

Rei looked him in the eyes, "I think…that it was real."

Simon stepped sideways to his kit, covertly slipping some of the medications he had been trying on river into his hand. "What makes you say that?"

She pulled the A10 clips out of the pocket of her pants. "I was wearing this in my first dream, and in this one too."

Simon, still thinking maybe the girl was losing her mind kept the syringe behind his back. The girl could be really creepifying. "I don't understand the significance."

She set them down on the counter. "I found them inside the tube we collected on Santo."

Simon didn't understand the point at first, then as the realization hit him he dropped his syringe. _She had that dream _before_ we picked up the cargo._ Before he could talk Rei spoke again.

"And, the seat inside, I remember sitting in it, in my dreams, inside the robot…only this time it bled." Rei looked towards the floor, almost certain he'd think she was as moonbrained as his sister.

"Rei, that capsule is from earth that was, since you're not 500 years…" and then everything clicked. The ancient cryopod, her lack of memory, the dreams, then this capsule. She couldn't remember which planet she was from and she didn't have any ident because she was _from_ Earth-That-Was. All formality and decent core-bred speech couldn't convey what was on his mind at that moment. Only three words came from his mouth, "No rutting way."


	7. Chapter 7

I must be some kind of MACHINE putting out chapters like this, what can i say the creative juices are flowing :3

as usual, read, review, and i still need pre-readers.

Mal was standing in the bridge doing captainy things. One of said things was talking to Badger, or at least trying to. The problem was that the picture on the other end was coming from the floor of his office and there were dead bodies all about. _Shiny, looks as though we're not getting paid…again._ He closed the channel and several seconds later another wave came in. He opened the channel and looked at the face staring back at him, "Hello Fanty."

"I got a job for you; I'm sending you the details now."

Mal looked over the details scrolling out on a second screen, "A bank heist huh? Alright, we can do it."

"Excellent, you can make your delivery on Beaumonde" then Fanty cut the transmission.

_Maybe we get to eat after all._

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Simon was pacing back and forth in the infirmary, looking at Rei and then looking at the floor again. Rei had taken the news well all things considered. Simon looked at her one more time. "I'll need a blood test to make sure…"

Rei smiled slightly at Simon and provided her arm, "That's okay."

Simon delicately poked the syringe into her arm, drawing out a blood sample. Rei looked up into his eyes. "What is this for?"

Simon turned and put some of the blood into a machine on the counter. "It's to see how long you were in cryo, the process leaves traces in your system and its possible to determine an approximate time that you were frozen." He stared at the screen waiting for a readout.

The machine was a modern medical miracle; it could give a complete profile of the supplied blood. Chemical composition, glucose levels, white cell count, red cell count, DNA profile, among other things. The readout appeared on screen and Simon's jaw dropped. _Girl's full of surprises…_The readout was…interesting to say the least. Her basic readings were normal enough but the DNA profile was wrong, very wrong. He turned to Rei. "This isn't possible, it says your DNA is fifteen percent human with eighty-five percent unidentified…"

Rei shrugged at him. "I…don't know I feel human enough."

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The landing on Lilac was eventful. Mal was standing on the bridge during entry to atmo and was looking out the forward window when an object flew up past the window. "Did the primary buffer panel just fall off my goram ship for no apparent reason?"

"This landing is going to be interesting." Wash was fighting with the controls to keep the ship stable.

"Define interesting."

"Oh god oh god we're all gonna die?"

"Just get us on the ground"

"Oh, that's gonna happen pretty definitely"

Mal walked over to the handset and pulled it down, talking into it. "This is the captain. We have a little problem with our entry sequence, so we may experience some slight turbulence and then… explode."

Mal walked out of the cockpit towards the back of the ship, as he passed the crew bunks he saw Jayne in the hallway "Mal I don't wanna explode."

The rest of the landing went fairly well, they touched down and _didn't_ explode, which was a positive in the opinion of the crew.

Mal, Jayne, and River boarded the Hover-Mule and took off towards town; Wash went with them after arguing that he hadn't yet gone on a job that _didn't_ end in being tortured by Niska. Upon entering town they got off of the mule and went into the bank. Jayne shot out the security cameras as Mal ordered everybody to the floor "you're all gonna wanna be looking very intently at your belly buttons." Meanwhile river walked through the room, looking at everybody before pointing at a man near the wall; Mal nodded his head and walked over to that man, pressing his pistol into the man's head. "Don't be a hero." The man slid his gun under a cabinet in the corner.

Mal and Wash walked over to the safe and forced the manager to open it, inside were a few small bills. Mal reached inside and pulled on something on the top of the safe and the floor retracted, revealing a stairway leading down into the main vault.

Wash called down into the vault. "We're coming down there now."

"I'll need your authorization code" replied a young voice, that of the guard.

Mal shot a few rounds out of his pistol into down at the staircase.

"Okay."

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"_Ai-ya Tyen-ah"_ Rei swore as she sat in the cockpit, looking at the sensor screen, seeing half a dozen Reaver ships dropping in from orbit, directly on the settlement that Mal's group was robbing. She snapped a hand down on the intercom switch. "Kaylee I need engines right now!" her voice was urgent.

In the engine room Kaylee pulled down on the primer lever and the engine began to turn, the urgency in Rei's voice overriding Kaylee's better judgment about starting up the engines for somebody who wasn't Wash or Mal. "Rei, what's going on up there?"

Before the engine had even finished its startup sequence Rei had already fired the thruster pods and lifted the ship off the ground, slower than normal as the grav-boot hadn't fully initialized. "Reavers." And that was all Kaylee needed to know.

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River saw a Reaver in front of her and fell as it slashed at her, after seeing the vision she whispered from the floor, and Jayne heard her. "Reavers."

Jayne's eyes opened wide and he ran for the vault. "Mal!!"

Mal looked towards the stairs and started walking. "Every job he's gotta yell my name…" then he called out louder, "What is it?"

"Reavers, the Reavers are here!" Jayne's voice had panic in it, the Reavers terrified him.

"_ta ma de, _does this vault lock from the inside?" The young guard nodded his head. "Get everybody down here and lock the door, don't open it as long as you have air, _dong ma?_"

The guard nervously replied "Y-yes sir."

Wash looked at Mal "It never goes smooth huh?"

The two of them grabbed the bags of money and ran to the mule, taking Jayne and River with them on the way out the door. Once on the mule Wash radioed _Serenity_, "Kaylee warm up the ship, we're on our way back and uh, oh yeah, we're being chased by Reavers"

Unexpectedly it was Rei's voice that answered them, "Hey Wash, the ship is already in the air and I am approaching your location." By the end of her transmission Zoe had reached the bridge.

"What the hell is going on up here?" Zoe was reaching for her gun seeing the girl flying the ship, distrustful of her intentions.

"Thrilling heroics" she deadpanned "You're going to be needed in the cargo bay in about forty-five seconds, I'd grab a gun and run."

Zoe cocked her gun and Rei heard the click. Rei slapped the button to drop the loading ramp and open the inner airlock doors, she turned to Zoe and looked at the gun, a little uneasy about the possibility of being perforated. "Reavers are chasing the Captain and your Husband"

That was all Zoe needed to hear, she turned and ran from the bridge without saying a word, running through the hallway and down into the cargo hold. She looked out the open door and saw the mule, it was being chased by a Reaver skiff. She readied her rifle and stood at the open doorway, waiting.

On the bridge Rei had radioed the Captain. "I'm going to try something, head straight into the cargo bay and don't slow down until you hit the ramp.

In the mule Mal had little choice but to listen to the girl, she was flying his ship and was his only real chance to get off this gorram rock alive. "When this is done we're going to have some words, little girl!"

Rei, in the cockpit replied one last time, "You have no idea." The mule hit the ramp and then two things happened nearly at the same time. In the cargo bay Zoe slammed her hand down on the button to close the ramp. On the bridge Rei pulled hard on the thruster position lever and spun the engines one-hundred-eighty degrees and killed _Serenity's _forward momentum in the half second it took for the mule to cross the ramp into the ships gravity field, slowing the ship enough as to not splatter the people riding the mule against the back wall of the cargo bay. Slamming the lever back to the middle of its range of motion the thrusters faced ninety degrees to the ship, facing straight down and sending the ship upwards and out of the way of the Reaver skiff. Rotating the thruster back towards their forward position and gunned the engines, spinning them past their rated maximum speed and heading towards the town. _This is going to end great._

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In town the citizens of the town were dead, dying, or locked into the vault. The Reaver ships were still tethered to the ground as the Reavers themselves continued to search the town for survivors. Overhead, if they had been looking, they would have seen a firefly flying at unsafe speeds toward them, as it was they were too busy raiding the town.

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On the bridge Rei was putting into action something she knew to work, she'd talked with Kaylee enough during her time spent in the engine room and she knew what happened when the main engine lit off in atmo. She activated the intercom to the engine room. "Kaylee, I need you to get ready for full burn."

Kaylee was extremely nervous about that particular concept. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

Rei answered her, "I can't think of anything better."

In the engine room Kaylee prepped for full burn.

In the hallway leading to the bridge Mal overheard Rei's request for full burn, and yelled towards the cockpit as he broke into a dead run, "Don't you dare!!"

For Rei things seemed to move in slow motion, she killed the thrusters and used the maneuvering jets to spin the ship backwards, nose up, tail down and thus put the ship into an aerodynamic stall, the ship was directly above the tethered Reaver ships, they had no way of getting out of the way in time. Rei called into the intercom and Kaylee fired off the main engine at full burn, superheated plasma shot out of the engine as it produced maximum thrust, said plasma detonated in the atmosphere of the planet and, unlike the ship on whitefall, the ships here were very small. The concussion wave from the blast sent the ships tumbling into the ground, destroying some, seriously damaging others. The second effect of firing the main drive was _Serenity_ herself rising from the blast like a phoenix born of flame, clawing for the black as it rose higher and higher in the atmosphere. As she finally broke atmo Mal reached the pilots seat and slammed the butt of his pistol into Rei's head, knocking her out cold.

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Rei woke up in the airlock, a radio on the floor in front of her face. The radio crackled and Mal's voice came through.

"I think it's time we had that talk."

Rei reached out for the radio and pressed the talk button, "Okay."

"You're full of mysteries girl, lets start with where you're from, I don't believe this amnesia bit anymore, no way you can fly like that if you can't remember nothing."

"I can pilot, I remembered that I could when I had to do it, and I learned a lot from Wash."

"That don't tell me where you're from darlin."

"I don't remember."

Mal reached over threateningly at the button to open the outer airlock door, "You be givin me clear answers or there's gonna be trouble, I gotta look out for me and mine and I conjure that ain't you right now."

Rei clicked on her radio again, "Simon tells me I'm from Earth-that-was..."

"That's _go se_ ain't no way you can be."

Book stepped into the bay, having heard the exchange from the upper catwalk on his way to the dining room. "She's not lying Mal."

"Stay out of this preacher."

"Would you murder this girl?"

"She's a danger to my crew"

"That's an interesting way to look at it, as I recall she just saved your life."

Seeing the shepherd's point he opened the inner airlock door and Rei stepped out. "I still want answers, girl."

"I think I can help with that." Book handed a sheet of digital paper to Mal, on it was a picture of Rei wearing a white rubber-latex bodysuit, and a picture of a tall one eyed mecha, stenciled on the arm were words: 'Evangelion Unit-00 Prototype.' A white capsule not unlike the one currently in their cargo hold was sticking from its back. The paper read:

**Ayanami, Rei**

**Designated pilot Evangelion Unit-00 (Prototype)**

**Age:14 years**

**Date of birth: Classified**

**Mother: Classified**

**Father: Classified**

**Responsible for piloting synthetic life form Evangelion Unit-00 in combat in defense of the city of Toyko3, Japan against the threat of the Angels.**

**Put into cryostasis September 23****rd**** 2017 **

**Unit-00 put into cryostasis September 23****rd**** 2017**

**Pilot and machine placed on J.N.S Katsuragi June 19****th**** 2250.**

**Launched on July 12****th**** 2256 with initial migrant fleet for new solar system.**

**Contact lost December 30****th**** 2301.**

Mal looked at the paper, then at Rei, then at the capsule, then back at Rei, again at the capsule, and then at the paper one last time. "Shepherd, you're gonna have to tell me who you really are"

"No, i don't."

"I insist, you get first class treatment on that alliance ship, now you show me this, i really need to know."

Book nodded his head slightly and pulled out his ident card, showing it to the captain, at the top of the card there were two words: 'Section Two'

One word came to Mal's mind, "Huh."


	8. Chapter 8

I really am a chapter writing machine.

* * *

The landing on Beaumonde had gone without incident. In the few hours since the revelation about Rei there were more questions, and no more answers. Mal couldn't get any more information about Book's past, but that wasn't really a surprise.

Simon and River were to stay on the ship while Mal and Jayne made the drop off with Fanty and Mingo at the Maidenhead. Rei had wandered off into the crowds, that also wasn't a surprise as they hadn't landed on any large worlds since bringing her on-board and as a result she had a bad case of cabin fever. On her aimless journey through the crowds she found herself at the Maidenhead. _Interesting coincidence._

Mal and Jayne had met up with the twins Fanty and Mingo in the bar. Mal nodded to the men, "Mingo, Fanty."

"No, I'm Fanty, he's Mingo"

"No, you're Mingo, he's Fanty"

"How is it you can always tell?"

Mal smirked, "Fanty's prettier."

They men sat, discussing business when River had wandered her way into the bar, having slipped off the ship when nobody was looking. Jayne could be heard in the background while she was wandering through the tables, "My muscular buttocks its forty percent!"

River's attention was grabbed by the tele-screen on the wall; a fruity oaty bar commercial was on it, she found that she couldn't take her attention off of it, a little voice came from the screen, "_Fruity Oaty Bars! Make a man out of a mouse! Fruity Oaty Bars! Make you bust out of your blouse! Eat them all the time! Let them blow your mind... ohh! Fruity Oaty Bars_!" Slowly she found her mind closing off, her vision tunneling. She spoke one word, "Miranda." A few seconds later all hell broke loose.

Rei had just entered the bar when River walked to a man standing near his table and kicked him through it; she kicked a glass off his table at a girl near another table, then spun around in place and snapped her foot against a third man's neck. In a matter of seconds she'd taken down three people and was working on her fourth when two people tried to escape up the stairs, she flung herself up after them and snap kicked the two of them back down before flipping down the stairs and grabbed the bottle out of the hand of a man trying to hit her with it. She slammed the bottle into his head and threw the broken half from her hand at another man, stabbing into him.

"Do you know that girl?" Fanty inquired.

Mal stared at River, his mouth open, "I really don't" He ran for the gun lockbox that his pistol was currently residing in as Fanty and Mingo made their escape, forgetting to take their cut of the loot. River, meanwhile, was still decimating the patronage of the bar. A man brought up a gun to shoot her, she snapped his forearm at ninety degrees and took the gun from him, shooting him in the gut and spinning to point her gun directly at Mal, whose gun was also pointed at her. She hesitated with her finger lightly on the trigger, his own hand tensed, ready to pull his trigger if need be. River stood there, her mind fighting back, refusing to let her programming make her kill this man. She finally managed to drop her gun, and at that Mal felt himself relax; he didn't want to kill this girl who had become family over the last eight months.

Rei let out a breath she hadn't know she'd been holding, unfortunately her relief was short-lived. One of the men was awake and he was armed, he pulled an automatic shotgun from the inside of his duster and brought it up to point at River from his position against the wall.

Mal's eyes turned to the man, his gun following it but not fast enough. River turned to the man just in time for him to discharge four slugs in rapid succession. Time seemed to slow down. In the point-three seconds that seemed as an eternity, five things happened: Mal pulled the trigger on his gun, the bullet leaping from the barrel and shooting through the air towards the gunman's head, the second was a bright orange octagonal barrier flaring up in front of River, the third was the slugs slamming into that barrier, the fourth was the gunman's head exploding as the bullet hit it, and the fifth was Rei Ayanami hitting the floor, unconscious and with her eyes rolled back in her head.

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_Serenity _was already breaking atmo when Rei woke up; she was lying on the bed in the infirmary, her eyes staring up at the ceiling. _I'm making a habit of this._ She sat up and turned on the bed, dropping her bare feet to the floor.

Simon heard the soft noise and turned to her, "Oh, you're awake. Mal has…questions, told me to send you to the bridge when you woke up."

Rei nodded her head at him and left the infirmary, climbing the stairs from the passenger dorms up to the hallway to the dining room, walking through it and the hallway after into the bridge, in time to overhear a conversation.

She heard an unfamiliar voice on the comm.,"…And, she falls asleep. Which, she would be sleepy.

Then she heard Mal, "Can you go back? See if anybody spoke with her before she acted up... made any kind of contact with her."

Then River, "Miranda..."

She looked into the bridge as Mal spoke, "Miranda? Go back further."  
**"**No..." the same unfamiliar voice.

"Uh... please? "

"Oh, Mal, you're very smart. Someone is talking to her."

Wash looked at the screen in front of him, "The oaty bar?"

Mal, however, had caught on,"subliminal. It's a subliminal message, broadwaved to trigger her. "  
"I've been seeing this code pop up all over, the last few weeks. It's Alliance, and it's high military. They have gone to enormous trouble to find your little friend... and found her they have. Do you all know what it is you're carrying?"

Mal closed the link with Mr. Universe and turned to his chair, to face Rei, "Care to join us?"

She walked into the room and over to where Mal was seated. Mal pulled up the video from the bar fight and tracked the video backwards and froze it at the point where the barrier had floated in front of river, blocking the bullets, Rei could see herself on the upper level of the bar holding her hand out with a worried expression on her face at the same time as the barrier was active. "So," he said, "I'm showin the respect to keep you out of the airlock this time, got any answers for me?"

Rei opened her mouth to say that she had none, but before she could say anything Simon had stepped onto the bridge holding digital paper, "She doesn't, but I do."

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River was curled up in a corner in the cargo bay, Book was trying to comfort her but it wasn't going as well as he'd have liked.

"She's dangerous, it's not safe for you, she's a weapon, _they_ made her into one and she can't stop it!"

Book rested his hand on hers and looked into her face, "River, you're a girl, you have been as long as I've known you, nobody can make you into anything else, they can't take away who you are River."

She seemed to calm down at hearing this, but the thought was still nagging at the back of her mind. _If they tried to make me, could I fight it? Or would I kill them all…_

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"So you mean as to tell me that the girl ain't human" Mal looked disbelievingly at the paper in front of him, then he looked back to Simon, "Because she looks mighty human-like to me, 'cept for the blue hair and creepifyin eyes."

Simon looked to Rei and back to Mal. "She's human…and she's not. I don't know what to make of it, her DNA looks human, but its configuration isn't the same, it branches into different base pairs, she looks human…but there's something in there that _isn't_ and maybe that accounts for some of her mysteries, maybe it doesn't"

Mal sighed, "Guess that's all we're gonna find out then, the girl don't seem to know any more than we do 'bout it."

Rei left the bridge, walking down to the cargo bay to think.

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On an alliance cruiser another man was watching the same recording of the fight at the bar. The tall black man smiled as he saw the people on the screen. The message to trigger River Tam had given them even more information than they could have hoped for. She was a passenger on _Serenity_ a ship owned by Malcolm Reynolds. However, even better than just that information was that he now knew that they also traveled with a girl they had been searching for, for the last ten years, the only one of the three they had not taken. He had found Rei Ayanami. The Operative allowed himself one more smile.

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River was sitting in the co-pilots chair searching through star maps. It was the middle of the night cycle and one word kept her up; kept flashing through her mind. _Miranda. Miranda. Miranda. Miranda._

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Mal was sleeping in his bunk when the wave came in, he woke up from the constant buzzing coming from the comm panel. He walked over to the seat in front of it and sat down; when he answered the call he saw Inara's face on it. She'd been at the training house after she left _Serenity_ a month ago, and the call was a little unexpected.

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"So… trap?" Zoe asked when Mal walked onto the bridge.

"Trap." Mal answered

"We goin' in?"

"Ain't but a few hours out."

Wash turned his head to look up at the two, "Yeah, but... remember the part where it's a trap?"

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Mal was hiding under a robe as he sat next to Inari at her shrine in the companion training house. "Dear Buddha, please bring me a pony and a plastic rocket..."

Inara turned to Mal, "Mal, what are you doing here?"

Mal shrugged, "You invited me."

"I never thought for a second you'd be stupid enough to come!"

"Well that makes you a tease."

At that moment the operative stepped through a doorway into the room, and Mal stood to face him.

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Mal and Inara were flying in the shuttle back to _Serenity. _The meeting at the training house had been eventful: The Operative demanded Mal turn over River and Rei to him, and Mal made of point of delivering the message that it ain't gonna gorram happen. He used bullets to deliver said message, then grabbed Inara and ran for the shuttle.

The shuttle docked with _Serenity_ and the ship broke atmo, dumping navsat decoys and heading towards haven.

That night Mal found River on the bridge searching through navigational maps, and she pointed to a blue green ball on the screen, and turned to Mal, "Miranda"

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"Miranda the girl's been talking about is a planet, right here" Mal pointed to the planet on the screen. "It's not too far out, and I'm willin to bet that whatever secret is there is the reason they're chasin after river. I aim to find out what that is."

Wash zoomed out and shook his head at the captain; he drew a line across the black between the planet and the rest of the system. "Mal, this is Reaver territory, no way are we getting through there…"

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The ship set down on Haven and Mal, Zoe, and Book stepped down the Ramp and looked on in horror. Everybody was dead, men, women, children. There was a crashed alliance gunship stuck into a mound of earth, the escape hatch blown open but no pilot in sight. Ship looked as though it was taken down by a flak gun.

There was a sound off to the side and they turned to see the alliance pilot, rifle in hand. The man got a single shot off; it went directly into the shepherd's chest. Mal pulled his gun from its holster and returned fire, dropping the man to the ground with a shot to his forehead.

Mal dropped to the ground where Book lay, holding the man, he turned his head into the bay and yelled, "Doctor! Somebody get the doctor, the shepherd's been hit!" He turned his head down to look at Book's face, "It's gonna be okay, the doc's gonna patch you up…"

Book lifted his head, his strength beginning to fail him, "I'm…afraid not…this time…" and his fell, his whole body going limp in Mal's arms.

Simon was sprinting across the cargo bay, med kit in hand, as he made for the shepherd laying on the ramp. Before he even got to the man he knew it was too late. Book had died.

Jayne stood at the end of the ramp, looking out for more alliance soldiers, "How come they ain't waiting? They knowed we was coming, how come they only sent one?"

Zoe's blood ran cold, "They didn't know we were coming here." She slapped the intercom on the ramp controls, "Wash get on the Cortex, wave, Li Shen, the Sanchez brothers... anyone who has ever sheltered us after a heist. Tell them to get out. Get out now."

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"_I'm sorry. If your quarry goes to ground, leave no ground to go to. You should have taken my offer. Or did you think none of this was your fault?"_ The operative's face was on the comm screen in front of Mal.

"I don't murder children"

"_I do. If I have to."_

"Why? Do you even know why they sent you?"

"_It's not my place to ask. I believe in something greater than myself. A better world. A world without sin."_

"So me and mine gotta lay down and die... so you can live in your better world?"

"_I'm not going to live there. There's no place for me there... any more than there is for you. Malcolm... I'm a monster.What I do is evil. I have no illusions about it, but it must be done."_

"Keep talking. You're not getting a location trace off this wave."

"_And every minute you keep them from me, more people will die."_

"You think I care?"

"_Of course you care. You're not a Reaver, Mal. You're a human man and you will never understand how… "_

Mal cut the signal and left the bridge.

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"Get these bodies together." The look on Mal's face was on of barely contained rage.

Zoe looked at the captain, "We got time for grave digging?"

Mal continued. "Zoe, you and Simon rope them together. Five or six. I want them laid out on the nose of our ship." He turned as he kept walking. "Kaylee I want you to muck up the reactor core, just enough to leave a trail and make it read like we're flyin without containment, not enough to fry us."

Kaylee looked up at him, in shock over what he'd told Zoe and Simon to do. "These people are our friends."

"You got a day's work to do and two hours to do it. Jayne, you and Wash hoist up the cannon mount, goes right on top. Piece or two of the other ship, stick it on. Any place you can tear the hull without inner breach, do that too. We're gonna need paint, we're gonna need red paint."

Zoe glared at him, "Sir… Do you really mean to turn our home into an abomination, so that we can make a suicidal attempt at passing through Raver space?"

"I mean to live, I mean for us to live. The Alliance won't have that so we go where they don't follow."

The rest of the crew present started to protest, Mal cut them off. "This is how it is, anybody doesn't wanna fly with me anymore, this is your port of harbor. There's a lot of fine ways to die, I ain't waiting for the alliance to choose mine. I mean to confound these bungers, take my shot at getting to Miranda, maybe find something I can use to get clear of this, so I head a word out of any of you that ain't helping me out or taking your leave, I will shoot you down. Get to work."

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_Serenity_ flew through the Reaver bone yard, hundreds of destroyed ships, dozens of Reaver ships, covered in spikes and decorated with bodies were all around as she slipped quietly through the middle towards Miranda.

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AUTHORS NOTES: Terribly sorry about taking so much dialog from the movie, just seemed better this way. Next chapter is going to be something you'll never have seen coming ;)


	9. Chapter 9

the machine strikes again, another chapter for your reading pleasure ;)

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Wash was entering the entry sequence for _Serenity's_ decent into atmo over Miranda. The ship lurched slightly as the ship hit atmo, flames from the heat of re-entry flicking past the windows. "I don't know what we're going to find, Miranda's supposed to be a black rock." Wash sat nervously behind the controls of the ship, he was still shaken from the trip through Reaver space and his flying showed that fact.

Mal remained silent as he stood behind the pilot, looking out the window as the ship descended. Shock flashed across is face as he saw the shattered remains of cities, buildings were destroyed and streets were torn up. "_Ai-yah Tyen-ah_ what happened here…"

A console beeped in front of Wash and he looked over at it. "Mal, I'm getting a signal, its weak but its coming from one of the cities."

Mal couldn't take his eyes away from the window, couldn't stop looking outside. "Take us down."

Wash piloted the ship over to one of the larger cities and began the landing cycle when a hatch, not unlike a missile silo, showed up on his scanner, as he flew past it began to open. He turned the ship and settled in, hovering over the open shaft. "Just like on Haven…" He reduced power to the side thrusters and dropped the ship down the shaft, dropping down until the ship reached a horizontal shaft, he lead the ship through there and landed inside a large dark hanger.

"Wash, turn on the lights, I conjure its best we find out where we are."

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The hull sensors had confirmed atmosphere was human breathable nitrogen-oxygen mixture. There were no toxins in the air.

The crew of serenity stepped out of the ship, River, Rei, Mal, Zoe, Wash, Simon, Jayne, Kaylee, and Inara. They had seen an elevator on a wall very near the ship; the lights had illuminated the area.

The group entered the elevator and it had taken them up to some sort of control room. It was lined with consoles, however it was not much bigger than _Serenity's_ dining area. One of the consoles was still lit, there was a memory storage unit sitting on the panel, disconnected from its socket slightly. River slowly approached the console and turned the storage device, locking it into the interface. A projection of a young woman showed up.

"_I don't have much time. The girl escaped, we didn't know what they were doing to her, we were here as support personnel, maybe we should have asked more questions…She found the machine, we knew they were connected by we didn't know how. We found it here and built this facility to study it, and we found out amazing things; they are alive organic flesh under synthetic armor, a neural control interface. We'd never seen anything like it before. The girl, she took it, started it up, I don't know how she did it. She fought her way out, tore through the blast doors and forced her way out the exit shaft. The directors panicked, screaming about keeping the secret, keeping the test subject contained… They bombed us, the gorram alliance bombed the cities, the towns, everything, killed us all from orbit, the population had seen too much and they couldn't allow that. They killed the girl in the first blast, the machine shut down and the nukes vaporized it. When the girl died, something happened, some of the survivors went insane, their aggressor response is off the charts they have killed most of us…and done things, unimaginable things. I'm making this recording so that somebody will know what happened he-. oh my god they're breaking through…" _

The woman turned away from the camera and fired her pistol, getting off two shots before she was attacked, there was screaming coming from the projection as a Reaver passed in front of the camera, then Mal grabbed the memory module and disconnected it, silencing the projection.

Unseen, Rei slipped off into the darkness, she knew what she was looking for. She knew what she had to do.

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"They…killed everybody, 30 million people dead for no reason." Simon was in shock. "How can they…"

Kaylee spoke up, "It's not right…"

Rei opened a comlink to the ship, but didn't say anything yet, simply listening.

Mal spoke up, "This record here's about ten years old. Parliament buried it and it stayed buried until River here dug it up. This is what they were afraid she knew. And they were right to fear. There's a universe of folk who're gonna know it, too. Someone has to speak for these people."

The crew looked at him, all sharing the same throught, that he was right.

"Y'all got on this boat for different reasons, but y'all come to the same place. So now I'm asking more of you than I have before. Sure as I know anything, I know this - they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, ten? They'll swing back to the belief that they can do this, and I do not hold to that. So no more runnin'. I aim to misbehave."

Jayne took a drink and spoke up, "Shepherd book used to tell me, 'If you can't do something smart, do something right.'"

Zoe turned to Mal, "Do we have a plan?"

Mal anwered, "Mr. Universe."

Zoe cocked an eyebrow, "It's a fair bet the Alliance knows about Mr. Universe.

Mal sighed. ". We haven't the equipment to broadwave this code, but he can put it on every screen in the system, he's pretty damn close, too."

"They're gonna see this coming."

Rei spoke up, everybody turned to see her on the comm screen, the inside of an entry plug in the background, the white clips in her hair and that rubber-latex suit on her body. "No, they won't see this coming."

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Rei walked down the hallways of the complex, finding the door she was looking for and stepping through. The emergency lighting still lit, though dimly. She could still make out a form she'd seen in her dreams, the purple and green armor, the spiked helmet. Evangelion Unit-01, and she had found it. Dressing into the plug-suit she'd brought with her, she stepped into the plug and clipped the A-10 connectors in her hair. She activated the comm between herself and _Serenity_ listening to the conversation, waiting as the plug filled with LCL. As she heard the final lines of the conversation the LCL had finished filling, had charged, and synchronization started. Eva showed her everything.

_Shinji was screaming as the knives cut into his brain, the monitors attached to him reading his brain activity. The doctors were trying to find out why this child could control the beast and none of their own people. They stripped parts of his brain they thought responsible for his ability and closed his head back up. They had done this before, they would do it again. Struggling with his last bit of sanity he escaped, he shoved the guards away from him and ran for the Eva, he had to escape, get out. He had almost made it when the gunshot rang out, the bullet passed through his back and out of his chest, going through his heart. He stumbled the last few steps and fell against Eva as he let out his final breath. At his touch Eva knew what he knew._

Rei opened her eyes in shock, and looked back at the comm window. _"…gonna see this coming"_

Rei turned to the screen, her face set in a furious expression, "No, they won't see this coming."

She grabbed the controls and fought the restraints, the Eva fought with her. They had a common goal: revenge.

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The entire complex was shaking apart around them as wash made it to the cockpit and fired up the ship's engines, lifting off not long after and speeding towards the exit. Clearing the hatch the crew watched in awe as the city behind them collapsed in on itself, then the debris was thrown back out as an explosion tore the remains apart.

_Serenity_ broke atmo not soon after and headed cautiously through the Reaver bone yard they all held their breaths as they passed close to Reaver ships. Nearing the edge of the area they were suddenly chased by a lone ship, the attack caught the attention of the other ships. "We're humped." Wash said, redundantly.

Mal, keeping a surprising amount of calm gave an order, "go full burn, see if they can catch us."

_Serenity_ leapt forwards as the main drive fired at full burn, the entire Reaver fleet close behind. Behind the Reaver fleet was a large purple object flying on orange wings of light.

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Review, etc. Another chapter down, Rei's pissed, the secret is about to get out.

I almost feel sorry for the alliance fleet right now.

Almost.


	10. Chapter 10

_Serenity_ burst forth from the ion cloud surrounding Universe's moon. Just like he'd said it _had_ played merry hob with the sensors. But they made it through the cloud and they were home free. Well, they would have been if there hadn't been an alliance fleet between them and the moon. They flew right down the middle.

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"You should have listened Mal, we should have done this as men, not with fire." The Operative stared out the window at the little firefly-class transport ship. It wasn't even changing course, flying right into its own destruction.

The look of shock on his face as the bow of a Reaver ship broke through the cloud was something the bridge crew would remember for the rest of their lives, which would be about ten minutes. "Target the Reavers. Target the Reavers! Target everyone! Somebody fire!"

They might kill the Reavers, but it wouldn't be enough. Unfortunately he didn't know that, so they fought.

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Wash was pushing _Serenity's_ thruster pods as hard as he could, dragging the ship around debris and other ships as the Reaver and Alliance fleets met in battle.

Soon after the initial shots were fired the Reaver ships near the cloud began to detonate inexplicably. Moments later a red lance shot forth from the cloud, followed by the purple hand of Evangelion Unit-01, its eyes glowing red and its mouth open in a soundless scream of rage. The unit accelerated out of the cloud, indiscriminately tearing Alliance and Reaver ships asunder as it progressed through the fight. Both fleets directed their attention to this new threat. Plasma and ballistic impacts dented and scarred her armor, but Eva still pushed forwards, flying on a direct line for the Operative's ship. An alliance gunboat flew up at close range to the Eva, intent on penetrating the armor of the beast. Rei caught sight of the craft and reached out to it, she wrapped the Eva's fist around it and threw it into a nearby alliance cruiser, causing both to explode in a ball of fire fueled by rapidly escaping atmospheric gasses.

Holding the lance in her left hand, and reaching up with the right, Rei ejected the progressive knife from its storage compartment. She held it in her hand as she slid ever closer to the lead ship. As she reached said ship she twisted the Eva around and stabbed the knife into the bow of the ship, dragging it backwards through the spine of the craft as the Eva flew past. Moments later another fireball erupted and the Operative was no-more.

'_He's going to die, help him!'_

Rei's eyes snapped open, the rage subsiding as her mind cleared. River called out with her mind, projecting the images of what would happen, what had already happened. She had to do something, stop it. She tossed the lance into her right hand, and shaping it into a narrow spear, she reached backwards and threw it towards the moon at a speed that even the fastest of missiles couldn't contend with.

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"No!"

"Yes."

"No!"

"Yes."

_Serenity_ shot through a hole that a Reaver ship had punched through an Alliance carrier, sailing through to the other side without hitting anything, the gunship in pursuit was not so lucky, detonating on the surface of said carrier. Wash was chanting his personal mantra, "I am a leaf on the wind…"

An explosion sent the ship tumbling before Wash corrected the spin and continued their rapid entry to the moon's atmosphere, "It's okay, I'm a leaf on the wind!"

Mal stared at him with an incredulous look, "What does that _mean_?!"

The ship went silent as a pursuing Reaver ship hit _Serenity_ with EMP, shutting down the engines and sending the ship into an uncontrolled spin towards death. Wash was fighting with the controls but the ship refused to respond "_Aiya Huaile_ everything's offline, I've got no control." He franticly pulled switches on his console trying to bring the backups online, nothing happened; franticly he punched the intercom button. "Kaylee, I've got no control and the backups won't come online, give me something or we're going to become modern art!"

In the engine room Kaylee had only one idea, and in any other situation she wouldn't even try it. _Either the engines come online or we explode, not much choice_. She dove under the engine and cross-fed the fuel line directly into the thrust regulator and patched the g-line across into the main power flow, kicking the engine over and bringing power back to the ship. _We didn't explode!_

Back on the bridge Wash gripped the controls tightly as the engines suddenly came back online, delivering full thrust. They were still going down too fast, he throttled the thrusters up to full and angled them upwards and slightly to the rear, killing forward momentum as well as vertical speed. He managed to slow the fall enough that when the ship's landing gear touched down on the runway they _didn't_ snap off, but they were still going far too fast forward. He spun the thruster pods directly backwards and used them to try slowing the ship before an abrupt end becoming part of the scenery at the far end of the hanger. As the ship slid through the hanger the forward velocity dropped off as one of the engine pods slammed into a support beam, bending it and spinning the ship around backwards and against the rear wall, dropping it off the platform facing out the door.

Outside, a Reaver ship had followed it into the hanger and was preparing to fire a harpoon directly through the cockpit of the small firefly.

Shocked to be alive, Wash spoke in a shaky voice, "I am a leaf on the wind, watch how i-"

He was cut off as an ear splitting shriek followed by the sound of ripping metal filled the cockpit. Outside of the cockpit window there was an enormous red spear sticking through a now disabled Reaver ship, above the ship was a hole in the roof cut cleanly through by the spear.

Mal spoke first, "Huh"

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Her mind was clear, she was sitting in the plug, calmed by the loving embrace of the Eva. The soul of the Eva knew how Rei felt, felt the love that she had for Shinji. The love that fueled her rage. That rage was gone now, he was avenged. Unfortunately that meant the AT field wings were dissipated, the rage that fueled them gone. Rei looked out at the fleet she had destroyed, the Alliance and Reaver ships had been mostly destroyed, with only a few remaining in the fight against each other. As she looked at the slowly receding fight the Eva hit atmo, the orange glow of re-entry flicking across the armor.

_Until again we meet, Shinji, I will keep fighting._

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The crew of serenity was hiding behind a barricade of boxes as they defended the elEvator, kept the Reavers at bay while the captain made sure the wave went out. The entire 'verse was gonna know, they had that right.

They slowly retreated behind the blast doors as the Reavers pressed in, the sheer number of them overcoming the amount of ammunition pouring into the horde. Kaylee took a hit to the neck, the poison darts filling her system with toxin, Wash took a bullet to his thigh soon after, and Jayne was hit in the arm. Deciding that a retreat was in order, Zoe and Simon grabbed Kaylee and Wash and pulled them deeper into the room before attempting to seal the blast doors. They didn't close, and a harpoon shot through the small opening and went through Simon's shoulder.

River sat next to him, eyes wide in fear and shock. Then they changed, her face tightened, and her eyes took on a new look, a look of rage. She whispered in Simon's ear, then ran to the door, jumping through the opening, throwing Simon's med-kit through the open doors and slapping her hand on the button to close them. Her family wasn't going to die today.

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Rei was sitting in the entry plug waiting. The Eva had slowed considerably as it fell through the sky, it had slowed enough that the red-orange glow of re-entry had faded. As the altimeter clicked passed 2000 feet she pulled a switch on the control cluster, the back of the shoulder pylons opened and six liquid fueled retro thrusters fired, thirty five seconds later the Eva slammed into the runway leading up to Mr. Universe's hanger. The force of impact made the ground shake, but it was slow enough that the runway did not crumble underfoot. The Eva crouched down on one knee and the armor on its back split open, the white entry plug ejecting partially and opening. A thin steel cable with a harness on it dropped from the side of the plug and Rei stepped out onto it, riding the hoist down to the ground. She stepped off at ground level, took a few steps forward beyond Eva's foot, and collapsed from exhaustion, the last thing she saw before the darkness took her was a ghostly image of Shinji standing in front of her.

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The elevator doors opened and Mal stepped out, with him was a broken and bleeding but very much alive Mr. Universe. He walked towards the group sitting on the floor in the small hallway. "The wave got out…where's River?"

The crew looked down at the deck-plates, Mal understood and looked down as well, anger and sadness were emanating from him.

The blast doors retracted and everybody looked up at the opening, waiting for Reavers to rush in to finish them off. The Reavers never came. They saw River standing in the middle of a pile of bodies, Reaver bodies, she had an axe and a sword made from a propeller in her hands, she was covered in blood not her own, and she was looking into the hallway at the crew, her family.

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Rei woke up on the ground in front of the Eva, she saw _Serenity_ lifting off and sliding out of the hanger. She smiled for the first time that day, everything was going to be okay, as okay as it could get. They lived, just this one time everybody got to live. She climbed onto the cable harness and ascended to the plug, sliding inside and sealing it up. She slid it into the Eva and activated the unit, then opened a wave to _Serenity_. Mal's face showed up on the screen.

"I guess I've got you to thank for that Reaver ship. Someday you're gonna have to tell me how you did that." He smiled, "Thank you, for saving my crew, we ain't always been on the best of terms, but you done right by me, and you have my thanks."

Rei smiled at him, "I'd never known what it was to have family, but meeting you, how you treat each other, I know now. I couldn't let it be shattered, River helped too."

Mal returned the smile. "I don't suppose you're gonna come with us are you?"

Rei turned her head away from the screen for a minute, pushing a few buttons on the control panel on her seat, her eyes going slightly wide for a moment before her smile returned. _Radion accelerator core, they did plan to put this into space._ She turned back to the screen, "No, I have something I have to do, we will meet again though Malcolm Reynolds, you've changed my life, all of you, and I want to come back to that, if you'll have me. But for now…for now, I aim to misbehave." She grinned impishly into the screen and cut the signal.

Moments later the armor on the back of the Eva spread and a flat wide radion accelerator drive slid into place on its back. The liquid fueled rockets extended from the shoulder pylons and Evangelion Unit-01 took to the sky, there was a mission to do, there were people who had to pay. She had a suspicion that this was far from over, there was a reason for that project on Miranda and she aimed to find out, and maybe throw a wrench into the works. As she'd said, she aimed to misbehave.

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Epilogue

It had been five years since Miranda. Malcolm Reynolds sat on the bridge of his ship reflecting on the past few years. Inara had moved on, it became clear that she and Mal would never work out; they lived in different worlds and it was unfair for either of them to have to change that. River and Simon had stayed on, they found a new home, different, better than what they had on Osiris. Jayne finally warmed up to them, he still picked on the doctor and the moonbrain, but anybody could tell he didn't really mean it anymore. They hadn't seen Rei since Miranda, but they had heard things, the Alliance was scared, he heard things about a demon, raids on alliance facilities, technology thefts at some and total destruction of others. The story was always the same, the purple demon came in at night, and by morning there was only destruction in its path. She hadn't lied, she was misbehaving, and Mal liked that.

He almost didn't notice the beeping and flashing of the RADAR screen he was so lost in thought. There was a ship coming up on their position it was big and fast. He reached for the comm to call Wash up from his bunk and get them clear, but stopped. The ship was too big and too fast, there wasn't anything he could do anyway, so Mal let him stay with his wife.

He was surprised when an Earth-that-was frigate came up alongside _Serenity_. He didn't think any were still flying. He received a wave from the ship, audio only.

"_Firefly transport _Serenity_ you will come alongside and prepare to be boarded, you have three minutes to comply."_ And the transmission cut off.

Mal woke up the crew, and two and a half minutes later they were assembled in the cargo bay, standing in front of the bay doors and waiting for what would come. What they got was not something they expected.

A young woman stepped through their airlock, her hair long, down to her waist. It was blue, her eyes were red, her skin was pale. Rei Ayanami spoke to the assembled crew, "It's nice to see you again Mal. I'll be brief, we have a chance to change everything, and I need your help."

End

Until the sequel anyway ;)


End file.
